


Madrid, 2052

by Mireille



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-09-18
Updated: 2005-09-18
Packaged: 2018-08-18 19:27:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8173132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mireille/pseuds/Mireille
Summary: "There's a bubble of time, a few years, in which she exists."





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2005, before we had a lot of details about what happened to Gallifrey.

His own past can't be changed, no matter what's happened to Gallifrey, so there's a bubble of time, a few years, in which she exists. As far as the universe is concerned, she winked into existence, fully-grown, when the White Guardian sent her to him, and she vanished without a trace when he and Adric left her behind in E-space. As far as the universe is concerned, she's only a memory, a hallucination, a faint echo of a time that never was. 

But during the years when she traveled with him--then, she's real.

He thinks back, and remembers a few days they spent in Madrid. It was spring, he thinks, and it was some time in the 2050's.... He can't come up with more details than that, and in the end, he waits until he's alone to look down at the TARDIS console and murmur, "Just find her, all right? Find Romana." He's not that interested in finding his former self, especially not that one; there are things that can't be fixed with a jelly baby. 

Jack's delighted when he learns where they've materialized; he's been here before, apparently, and he promises to take Rose to a nightclub that has Double Zeros Revival Nights. She'll be the height of fashion, he claims, and the Doctor grins at them both, glad to know they'll be occupied elsewhere. 

"I'm not going," he says, when Jack promises to buy him a drink. "There's someone here I need to see." He sees them safely to the club, and then sets off down the street he thinks he remembers. _He's_ off in a nearby side-street being hit on the head just about now, if he's recalling things correctly. Romana should be sitting impatiently in a _tapas_ bar waiting for him and the scientist they'd come here to see, the one they'd learn had been trying to bring about an alien invasion--and not coincidentally, the one who'd arranged to have him hit on the head. Romana's not the one who rescues him, so distracting her for an hour or two should harm nothing. 

She's sitting by herself, sipping _vino tinto_ and looking around her with frank curiosity. She always took everything in, noticed things that he didn't. He'd always liked that about her, even when she showed him up and he complained. _Especially_ when she showed him up and he complained. 

She recognizes him quickly, despite all the intervening regenerations, and her eyes widen. "You shouldn't be here, Doctor; you know that," she says, even as he sits down next to her. 

"It's all right," he says. "He won't be here for a while yet." 

She's curious as to what he's doing here, even after he reassures her that there's nothing to worry about; this was after the two of them had been trapped in the Vortex when Borusa had tried to bring them to the Death Zone, and she's afraid something like that might be happening again. 

He can't fool her; he knows that. She's aware that something's badly wrong, but she does believe him when he says that he can't tell her. She was always a sensible girl, about most things. Shoes, he remembers, she wasn't always good about, and she'd owned a few extremely silly hats, but the big things--there, he could count on her to be sensible. 

He can't stay long. It's too hard to keep from telling her things she shouldn't know, too tempting to tell her the things he hasn't told anyone--not even Rose, who knows more about the Time War than he wants her to. 

In the end, he stands up, flashing her a quick grin. "He's never going to get around to this, you know," he says--and that changes nothing; he remembers regretting it once she'd gone--"so I'm the lucky one." And while she's still looking bewildered, he leans in to kiss her. 

She tastes like wine and the saffron from her _tortilla española_. She tastes like the ashes of a past that never happened and the ghosts of a future that will never be. 

She tastes like home, and at that thought, he can't get away from her fast enough. 

When Rose and Jack get back to the TARDIS, tipsy and laughing and still humming music from the disco, he pastes on his grin again and prepares to show them the wonders of the universe. 

He doesn't think he'll be coming back to Spain.


End file.
